2003

Orton scrubbed his fingers through his beard, trying to brush off the worst of the snow. He hated Tibet, but he had to come through here at least three times each loop. Visit scenic Xīzàng, he thought sourly. Come for the transcendent spiritual traditions, stay for the inhospitable weather and shitty food.

At least he wouldn't have to climb Everest on this trip; that would come later, after his graduation to the third tier, when he could survive the climb without supplemental oxygen. So far, his progress on this loop had been much better than the previous one, and he was more than halfway there already; with any luck, he'd reach the fifth tier this time around. Fourth had been his previous record, and that obviously hadn't been enough to take Gentry; he was getting tired of getting his ass kicked.

Not that it was a guarantee, or anything. The fifth tier was seriously rarified territory; the theoretical maximum of spiritual and arcane enlightenment, where you could drop-kick the Buddha if you met him on the road. Even the most powerful practitioners might toil for decades without going up a single tier, and it took superhuman levels of dedication, an agile and inquisitive mind, and a soul receptive to the light of creation to even make the attempt. Orton had only reached the second tier on his first pass through life; if it hadn't been for Gentry throwing the moon at him, he likely would have never progressed further.

The past six years had been eventful; he'd worked with Jiann (who had made a frustrating but serviceable stand-in for Enna) to steal the rubis coeur noir in Paris, foiled the plans of a cabal of rogue Rosicrucians in Vatican City, and had a cavalcade of happy accidents in Finland that had culminated in the discovery of a previously unknown school of suomenusko magic in Jyväskylä. He'd learned three entire new paradigms from that one, which had greatly accelerated his headway through the ninety-nine thoughtforms of the base progression -- one of the last major obstacles to grind his way through on his way to the third tier. Thankfully, he didn't have to rediscover the nine hidden thoughtforms after those -- just reattune his mind-body duality to their fundamentalities. But first he had to undergo complete biotic purification, which required mastering the rite of repletion.

And now he was here, back in Xigazê, where he could do exactly that. In his pocket was the ancient rosewood coffer, barely four inches long, which contained one of the last three leaves known to exist of the unfortunately-named kum bum shù, the sacred tree said to have grown from the hair of Tsong-ka-pa. It had taken him nearly two years to obtain, and he had gone through all manner of difficult trials and dangerous situations to do so, but he knew from past experience that was the only way he could gain entrance to a particular monastery that had just the right combination of geomantic energy flows and mineral compositions in its water to sustain him through the excruciating process of the transition. He gathered his strength and bade a fond farewell to chocolate-chip cookies, perfectly-crisped bacon, and (most painfully of all) Big Red cinnamon soda, and opened the door to the monastery.

Or at least, he attempted to do so. But instead of austere silence and spiritual harmony, he was assailed by seizure-inducing flashing lights and cringy euro-pop dance music. Orton blinked. This was super fucked.

Asking around, he quickly confirmed his fears; in this timeline, the monastery had undergone a schism sometime in the 1970s, gotten embroiled in some real-estate entanglements, and eventually relocated to some less-permanent lodgings elsewhere in the city. A few remnants of the resultant descending sects were still around, but without their location on this specific plot of land they were useless to him. The burgeoning drift which had resulted from Enna's conjured hurricane had thrown them into the deep trenches of probability, and he had already counted many other divergences -- the accelerated dissolution of the Soviet Union, the extension of the Iraq War, and the surprising but deeply welcome addition of a badass lightsaber fight to the latter part of The Phantom Menace -- from his original timeline. Most of these were minor changes to global events, but Orton knew painfully well that they were harbingers of more dangerous changes to come; the more he and those he was Entangled with Faded, the thinner the veils between the mortal realm and the furthest reaches would become.

Not that any of that helped him. Without a place to master the rite of repletion, his spiritual progress would hit a brick wall; he'd be stuck at the same place Nej had been when they had fought. Not that Jiann was suffering from that problem currently -- as a revenant, his particular spiritual journey was fairly different from Orton's, and he was struggling with metaphysical growth issues of a decidedly different nature. Orton didn't know the specifics, but Jiann hadn't been thrilled when he'd brought them up. Undeath sucks just as much as life, apparently.

He sighed. No friends, no apprentice, no monastery, and I can't even soothe myself with comfort food. This country sucks.

With nothing better to do, he resigned himself to wandering around the icy streets; he'd been forced to come here during the absolute ass-crack of winter, and it was so bitterly cold that most of the locals stayed inside even during the middle of the day. It was desolate and lonely, and did nothing to improve his mood.

He was just about to give up and go buy a geometer's board to try to find a new cthonic nexus when his sight beyond sight twinged; someone was watching him. At his current level, he still couldn't sense augural vectors, but his aptitude at sensing auras had gotten so exact that he could passively identify when people were focusing on him. With an effort, he attuned himself to the questing presences around him; five minds, all burning with the sickly chartreuse of envy and dislike. He was about to get jumped.

On most days when this happened, Orton would just slip away; a quick obfuscation and a burst of psychic static was enough to shake mortal or even near-mortal pursuers. But he was in a crap mood today, and didn't feel like running; he unslung his bag, then took off his hat and shoved it into the pocket of his trenchcoat. "I'm broke," he called out, making a token effort at goodwill. If they didn't speak English, that was their problem.

The leader emerged from an icy, shadowy overhang; Orton nodded his head in acknowledgement. "I think you not broke," he taunted in passable robber-English, "but if you are, you pay with you butt!" Four other toughs melted out of the snowy darkness to surround Orton.

Orton grinned. He might be spiritually enlightened, but he was still going to enjoy this.

The first thug darted forward, aiming a shove at Orton's back; Orton pondered dodging, but decided to have a little fun first. He let the shove connect, doing his best at a convincing sprawl as he let his bag drop; the leader pulled out an impressively large knife and loomed over him with a drooling leer of cruelty. Orton waited a precise four-and-a-half seconds for the robbers to crowd around him. Then he wrecked their shit.

The robber holding Orton's bag went first; from his perspective, the tall American simply seemed to disappear into the snow a split second before an open palm crashed into his back between his shoulder blades. A stabbing pain, followed by an oblique tearing sensation, crashed through him, and he was instantly unconscious. The blow, both delivered with unnatural strength and infused with a principle of eldritch motion, launched the insensate robber like a missile at his compatriot; the second assailant had just enough time to register a blur of motion to his side before the force struck him like a truck full of hammers. The two of them went sailing through the air to crash through a nearby window with uncanny accuracy. Scuzz ball, corner pocket, thought Orton gleefully as he deftly snatched his bag out of the air.

The lead robber scrambled backwards in shock as the remaining two brandished clubs at Orton; Orton set his bag down again gently and freed up both his hands. The two thugs rushed him, clubbing viciously, but each time they struck he seemed to dodge by the thinnest of margins, which only spurred them on to greater heights of fury. When he had them almost to the point of frothing, he counterattacked.

Infusing the tip of his finger with a principle of extropy, Orton reached out and parried one of the clubs with an impossibly precise tap; in an instant, the club sprouted branches and leaves and became rather unwieldy to swing. Its possessor, jerking backwards in surprise, thus inadvertently swiped it across the face of his ally, who howled in surprise and pain as the sharp twigs and leaves raked his eyes and other sensitive organs. Orton ducked into the opening and delivered a chi-infused rising side kick to the distracted robber's ribcage; he was careful not to shatter it, but instead translated the bulk of the energy into a broader sweep of kinetic force, causing the screeching young man to go flying up and away as though launched by a giant's club. Orton paused and shaded his eyes with his hand, whistling appreciatively. Ten feet! A new record!

The thug with the inflorescent cudgel dropped it, scrambling backwards; Orton grabbed it out of the air as it fell, stepped behind the thug with impossible speed, and rammed it down the poor fellow's pants. His scream was high and girlish, and Orton was not above a cackle of triumph. He windmilled his leg up high and brought it down in a vicious axe kick that drove the punk's face into the street cobbles; he'd lose a few teeth to that one. Oh well. Teeth were overrated, and dentists needed business too.

The leader of the erstwhile robbers was already running, and rounded a corner before the screams had even faded. He dashed and dodged, panting for breath, before finally ducking into an open doorway and slamming it behind him. Huddling down in the dark, he strained his ears to listen for any sign of pursuit.

"You know," said Orton as he appeared out of the darkness next to the man, "the second precept of Buddha warns against theft." The would-be highwayman shrieked in a pitch-perfect high-E note as he spun around to stare at Orton in terror. Orton gently plucked his knife out of his nerveless hands, executed a little flourish with it as his mind spun through a ritual of desiccation, and shattered the blade into powder with a casual clench of his fist. "Maybe you need a refresher."

Enna was still getting used to Europe, but damn if she didn't love these trains.

She'd spent most of the last few years studying the book Orton had left with her; she'd had to learn French, but that hadn't been too bad. For the most part she'd barely had to use her powers, which she suspected had been a good thing; every time she verbally invoked, the power seemed to strain for release, and for the most part she limited herself to instinctive divinations and sparing conjurations. She was starting to get why some spiritual traditions had vows of silence.

But one could only sit in an apartment meditating and reading waffly transcendent texts in a language she only half-understood for so long; eventually she'd begun to drift, making her way as the mood took her across the country. She'd wandered up through Arkansas and Oklahoma, passed through Kansas and Nebraska, and spent a long while in Iowa before restlessness dragged her out east through Wisconsin and then west into Minnesota. On a whim, she'd hopped a flight to D.C. out of the twin cities, then boarded an international to Edinborough out of Ronald Reagan. She still wasn't sure why; curiosity about where Orton had buried her alive in the previous timeline, maybe. But she still found herself adrift in Scotland, as though something was calling her; she rode trains and buses south through somethingshires and whatever-exes, took a truly excellent trip through the Chunnel from Dover to Calais, and enchanted herself an unlimited Eurail pass. From there, she'd never stopped.

She rode the trains from France to Poland and back again, then up north to Sweden and down south to Sicily. She ventured out east to Estonia, back west to the Netherlands, then all the way down to Turkey before turning back in alienation from the unceasing call of the muezzin and the solid brick wall of anti-American sentiment. She never lacked for money, since every seat cushion and unattended bag was a rich trove of crumpled euro bills if she needed it.

Not that it was idyllic; occasionally she got tangled up in weird stuff. A couple of times strange cultists had tried to recruit or sacrifice her, and twice someone was murdered on the train she was riding; the first time she was able to slip away, but the second she was a suspect and she had to endure a solid week of Hercule-Poirot-esque investigations before she got frustrated, shifted the probabilities of culpability onto a guy she'd disliked, and ducked away during the inspector's big reveal speech. Each time, her powers were more than sufficient to save her, but she was acutely aware that she was both overpowered and underprepared. She needed to step up her game.

On several occasions, she contemplated reaching out to Orton; twice, she'd even begun the contacting ritual he'd taught her on their first meeting. But each time, she faltered; it wasn't that she was scared, she told herself. It was simply that she wasn't ready. There was some event, some momentous happening that she was being pulled towards, that would give her the confidence and experience to stand on her own two feet with him. She was absolutely certain of it. Probably.

This particular train ride was among the best so far; a leisurely crawl across the Swiss Alps, meandering from Luxembourg to Lichtenstein just because she'd thought the names were funny. She'd secured herself a sleeper car with a conjured credit card -- Orton, you really need to join the twenty-first century -- and had stuffed herself silly with rich pastries and frittered away nearly half the trip with lazy naps and bad romance novels. She was enjoying herself entirely too much, she knew, and was hoping she'd get it out of her system eventually. Any day now.

But definitely not today, because today was a glorious sunrise over a pristine snow-capped peak, seen through the window of the dining car and accompanied by an indeterminate but delicious coffee-based beverage of some kind sipped out of a gold-plated teacup. It was decadent. It was perfect. All she needed was someone to share it with.

"Excuse me," said the young blonde man sitting in the seat across from hers, "but could I trouble you for the time? I'm afraid I've lost my watch."

Enna shrugged. "I'm afraid you're asking the wrong person; I don't carry one." She turned back to the window, but found herself unable to return to her reverie; the moment's peace had been broken.

"Oh, you're American?" The young man was dressed impeccably in a crisp suit and tie, and spoke with an equally trim British accent. "Which state are you from?"

"Louisiana," responded Enna nonchalantly, pronouncing it Loozi-anna as did most natives. "But I haven't been there in years."

"Ah! That's one of the southern states, correct?" The young man smiled -- he had brilliant, very even teeth. "I'm afraid I never passed through there, but I did visit Florida about five years ago. Miami was lovely when I passed through."

"Oh yeah?" Enna was getting bored of this conversation. "And what were you doing there?"

"Oh, er..." the young man rubbed his neck self-consciously. "Studying Chinese language and culture, actually."

Enna blinked. "In Miami? That's unusual. Did you go to college there?"

"College? Oh, you mean university." The young man smiled. "I was much too young for that, I'm afraid. I'm only just now twenty-one."

Enna was surprised. "So what? Some kind of boarding school?"

The young man blushed and looked down. "I'm afraid not. I was... ah, being irresponsible, I suppose you could say. My parents left me on my own quite unexpectedly, you see, and I had to make my own way of things. I mucked it up a bit early on, but I eventually managed to make my way back over the pond and start a bit of a business."

"Finance?" guessed Enna. The young man practically stank of wealth; there weren't many ways to accumulate that sort of thing in a short timeframe.

"Er, no, actually," he demurred. "I'm an antiquities trader." On impulse, he hopped up and sat down across from Enna.

At first, she felt like being annoyed, but her loneliness was stronger than her good sense. "Antiquities, huh. That's interesting." She held out a hand for him to shake or kiss. "I'm Julie. Juliette Atborough."

"John," said the young man, taking her hand cheerfully. "John Walter Valentine."